Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 78 The beginning of the "agricultural revolution"

At ten o'clock in the morning on September 9, a strange piece of machinery was placed in an open space near the hydraulic windmill.

One of the machine's drive shafts is connected to a windmill, which uses water power to start the equipment running.

The main body of this equipment is composed of a roller mill, which is almost the same as grain milling under the operation of the driving shaft.

One of the travelers excitedly put a bundle of wheat into the comb teeth and swallowed it. The ears of wheat immediately fell off the stalks.

Inside the machine, a metal roller rotates rapidly within a fixed groove, leaving only a small gap between the rollers. Wheat ears flow in, and the friction of the rollers separates the grains, which then fall continuously from the hopper.

However, perhaps the fit between the rollers and the grooves was too poor, causing many grains on the wheat ears to not be peeled off and fall out directly, needing to be fed into the machine again.

Although this machine has many problems, its work efficiency is much higher than using stone rollers to thresh the wheat in the field.

You should know that before threshing the wheat, you need to build a threshing floor first, that is, to create a flat piece of land to pile up the wheat.

The threshing floor is first wetted with water, and when it is almost dry, a layer of wheat straw is spread on it, and the stone roller is used to grind the wheat in circles. Then, it is allowed to dry again before it can be used as a threshing floor.

The effect of this is that the wheat grains will not sink into the soil easily.

After the wheat is pulled to the threshing ground, it must be dried in clear weather and turned over frequently.

If the weather is bad, the sheaves can only be piled into stacks.

After the wheat is dried, the next step is to remove the grains, which is called "pressing the field" in China.

A stone roller pulled by animals was moved around the threshing floor, rolling the wheat ears thoroughly to remove the husks and expose the grains inside.

After all the wheat grains have been threshed, the next thing to do is to separate the wheat grains and straw and pile them separately.

The next step is winnowing, which is to let the wind blow away the impurities in the wheat grains.

Of course, there is not wind all the time. Sometimes, in order to wait for the wind to come, the workers need to wait in the wheat field at any time and work whenever there is wind.

As early as the 17th century, people tried to create a tool to save time and effort in the heavy and time-consuming task of threshing grain, but the machines they created were almost all of no practical value.

In fact, many machines invented worked on the principle of flail threshing.

It was not until 1732 that a machine invented and patented by the British Menzies was invented. It consisted of many flails mounted on a water-driven shaft. These flails were used to hit the grain placed on the ground below the machine to complete the threshing work.

But the thresher that was truly practical was invented by the Scotsman Mikel in 1786. This machine could perform threshing work better than any other device invented before it, and could be driven by water power or horses, but was sometimes also used for manual operation, which was simple and convenient.

However, this thresher is still unable to separate the wheat grains and husks, and the grains must be threshed manually using the traditional method of wind power.

In view of the extreme shortage of manpower in Shixing Fort, the time travelers have been thinking about making some practical machines to be used in agricultural production to alleviate the dilemma of labor shortage.

In the winter, Zhang Ruosong, the former chief engineer of the "Breaking Waves", brought several cadet soldiers who had some knowledge of mechanics and used more than 20 tons of iron materials seized from a Mexican town. Together with the blacksmith Pablo, they made several iron plows, which initially realized the "mule-horse" transformation of cultivated land and greatly reduced manual labor.

To clear weeds and tree roots from the fields, triangular iron rakes were crudely manufactured in the blacksmith's shop, freeing the residents of Shixing Fort from the arduous labor of manual picking and digging. When it came time for spring sowing, the time travelers also created a simplified version of the seed drill—the harrow.

Although this thing was invented by Zhao Guo, the grain-collecting commander during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, 1,700 years ago, its "advanced" level still amazes many Spaniards and they regard it as a divine weapon.

During this period, Europe had not yet undergone the Agricultural Revolution, and crop sowing tools were still very backward, relying mainly on manual labor. This method allowed for a great deal of arbitrariness in seed sowing density and soil cover depth, significantly affecting germination rates.

The plow can sow three rows at the same time, which not only ensures a moderate sowing density but also covers the soil in a timely manner, greatly improving sowing efficiency.

This seed drill, hammered and built in Shixing Fort, is made of metal and wood. Its working principle is basically the same as that of a harrow. It can be pulled by an ox or a horse and can sow seeds in a straight line at a controllable speed, instead of being crooked and messy like last year.

It is precisely because of these simple agricultural machinery that the more than 80 residents who stayed in Shixing Fort were able to double the crop planting area compared to last year with such limited human resources.

However, the time travelers encountered difficulties when they were "researching and producing" the wheat harvester.

Since the beginning of human agricultural production, before the introduction of mechanical harvesting machines, the labor used to harvest crops per unit area exceeded that of any other operation in the farming process.

Whether in the Eastern Shenzhou Continent or the Western European world, hiring extra labor to harvest crops during the summer and autumn harvest seasons has become a common practice.

Although many people have tried their best to produce various harvesting machines, their devices are diverse and different, but few of them are practical and can significantly improve efficiency.

Although the time travelers have rich theoretical knowledge of science and technology and have a general understanding of the working principles of the harvester, it is still quite difficult to "manufacture" a practical harvester with the existing simple production equipment and tools.

Zhang Ruosong and a few others tinkered with it for several months, wasting two or three tons of iron, but they couldn't even build a basic prototype of a harvester. They could only sigh and give up temporarily.

So much so that when the wheat harvest came, everyone had to continue harvesting wheat with sickles.

However, although a complex harvester could not be made, a thresher with simpler functions could still be made.

It is nothing more than installing a roller inside the machine and adding a groove to give it the function of crushing and rolling to remove the outer shell of the wheat ears and obtain the wheat grains inside.

This machine has low power (kinetic energy) and can be operated manually, using a rocker arm to start the machine.

However, what Shixing Fort lacks most is manpower, so of course they try to save as much as possible.

The windmills beside the stream are an unlimited source of power and must be fully utilized.

If this machine does not break down - and yes, due to its crude workmanship and simple parts, various malfunctions often occur during the operation of the machine - it can thresh 800 to 1,000 kilograms of grain every day, which is much more efficient than threshing with stone rollers in the wheat field, and it also greatly saves manpower.

"Instructor Zhang, the corn will be ripe in a month or so. Shouldn't we try to get a corn harvester to reduce the workload?" Former cadet Han Jian looked at the thresher happily and exclaimed, "Eight hundred acres of corn—it'll take forever to harvest!"

"I haven't even made a wheat harvester yet, and you expect me to make one?" Zhang Ruosong said unhappily. "Eight hundred acres of corn isn't a lot. If each person harvests two acres a day, with sixty or seventy people working together, we can finish harvesting in less than ten days."

"It's not as easy as you say!" Han Jian complained. "To pick the corn, you have to chop down the stalks first, then pick the cobs, collect the cobs, dry them in the sun, and finally rub the corn manually. The whole process takes at least several months. You know, in the winter, we have nothing to do but rub the corn. ... My hands are all worn out!"

"Well, wait a minute." Zhang Ruosong couldn't help but laugh bitterly when he heard this. "This harvester is too troublesome to build. Many parts can't be produced. I can't just make you a corn harvester by hand. However, since we can now make a wheat thresher, the process and manufacturing method of a corn thresher are very similar. In a few days, after the wheat threshing work is finished, I will try to find a way to build you a corn thresher so that you don't have to thresh corn by hand in winter."

(End of this chapter)